You think Fuddruckers is dead? Texas burger joint is reopening in Dallas’ suburbs

Fuddruckers, the burger joint known for its wedge-cut fries and squirt-it-yourself cheese, is making a comeback in its home state of Texas.

Black Titan Franchise Systems, a fast-food franchise operator from North Carolina, purchased Fuddruckers in July 2021 and has plans to open 10 new restaurants inside Brookfield Properties shopping malls in five states. Fuddruckers Express stands in Dallas-Fort Worth will be installed at Hulen Mall in Fort Worth, Town East Mall in Mesquite and the Parks Mall in Arlington.

They’re expected to open before the end of 2022, says new CEO Nicholas Perkins.

The other Fuddruckers outside North Texas will go into food courts at malls in San Antonio; Houston; Carlsbad, Calif.; Durham, N.C.; Hoover, Ala.; and Atlanta.

The deal comes as surprising news to many, as the Securities and Exchange Commission declared in February 2021 that “liquidation is imminent” for Fuddruckers and its sibling restaurant, Luby’s cafeteria.

“The media had written quite a bit about the company not continuing, so I’m not surprised there was sentiment that the brand could have gone away,” Perkins says. “And that was very real; it could have. But we were fortunate enough to acquire it and keep it alive.”

The terms of the deal between Black Titan Franchise Systems and Fuddruckers were not disclosed. Howard University, where Perkins earned an MBA, reported the deal at $18.5 million.

Luby’s and Fuddruckers were separated in the sale, and Luby’s was purchased by entrepreneur Calvin Gin, whose family company is in the food-prep service industry for airplanes and Starbucks.

Perkins’ venture with Brookfield is part of its initiative called the Partner to Empower Program, which pairs Black business owners with development opportunities inside its shopping malls.

Perkins is already a franchisee for Chick-fil-A, Church’s Chicken and Pizza Hut. He owns a company that services cafeterias at colleges and military facilities; they serve about 100,000 meals a week.

What about the existing Fuddruckers?

Fuddruckers was opened in San Antonio in 1979 by Phil Romano, the Dallas restaurateur who went on to create Romano’s Macaroni Grill, Eatzi’s, Rudy’s Country Store and Bar-B-Q, and a dozen others.

Romano says he was inspired by the McDonald’s quarter-pounder, a burger he says tasted pretty good but could have been more gourmet. “I said, ‘How do you make a better hamburger?’ ” he says.

His original Fuddruckers — and the hundreds that would follow — ground the burger meat in-house and baked buns on site. The staff set burger toppings out in the dining room for customers to select their favorites, then squirt the cheese on top.

When Perkins purchased Fuddruckers more than 30 years after it was established, the company had just under 100 existing restaurants in its network. Perkins’ role is to be the franchisor of those restaurants, in addition to starting the 10 new burger joints in malls.

Perkins’ first plan is to stabilize Fuddruckers, he says. He wants to fix the “extremely fragmented” supply chain, change the technology and spend marketing money to reach potential customers as they reenter markets like D-FW.

“It has been arduous, as you can imagine, turning a company around,” Perkins says. “It has been, on a lot of fronts, a rebirth, a rebranding of the company.”

What’s new, what’s not

The three mall locations will bring Fuddruckers back into Dallas-Fort Worth “in a major way,” Perkins says. They won’t be the Fuddruckers from the past, however; these will be faster-service restaurants with slimmer menus than before.

The bestseller was the 1/3-pound burger, and Perkins expects it to be popular at the new restaurants as well. Customers will still get to squirt their own cheese on their burger or fries, but for food safety reasons, customers will no longer dress their own burgers with lettuce, tomatoes and other veggies.

Perkins didn’t grow up near a Fuddruckers, but he says he visited the burger joint while traveling. “You develop an affinity for it early on,” he says. He’s aware that some of those nostalgic moments can’t be removed from the faster, newer Fuddruckers Express locations.

“If we don’t have cheese sauce, it’s not Fuddruckers,” he says.

The menus will now have plant-based burgers. His team has also expanded the dessert menu, with a special emphasis on milkshakes and soft serve.

Invisible kitchens

Beyond the 10 coming-soon Fuddruckers in malls, the company will also sell delivery-only burgers, fries and wings in Houston, Austin, Plano and Frisco.

The four ghost kitchens will run inside commercial kitchens operated by Kitchen United. Customers will likely never visit these kitchens; they’re designed to be high-volume facilities with a large delivery area.

Perkins hopes that Fuddruckers’ “world’s greatest hamburgers,” as the tagline reads, will serve a wide radius of people in Collin and Dallas counties.

Why the name ‘Fuddruckers’?

Romano had a light-hearted affinity for Fudpucker World Airways, a “mostly make-believe” group of pilots known for its silly name.

“It was funny,” Romano says of when he converted the word Fudpucker into Fuddruckers.

He had to defend the name over the years to wary customers who thought it was a naughty word. Fuddruckers was just meant to turn people’s heads, to make them feel curious, Romano says.

But he also had to defend the name in court. Romano kept up the sing-song attitude from when he started the burger joint.

“Their lawyer asked me if there was a rude, vulgar definition of Fuddruckers,” Romano remembers. “I said ‘No, not in my mind. If it’s in your mind, you’ve got a problem.’ ”

For more food news, follow Sarah Blaskovich on Twitter at @sblaskovich.